Self-Destruct
by Nicolette134
Summary: A little dabble about Jordan and Rayanne, because I still don't understand why Angela forgave him, but not her.


They'd gone to elementary school together, back when he was still two grades ahead of her, but he'd been friends with Tino and Tino was Rayanne's neighbor back then and he walked her home from school. Sometimes Jordan tagged along, sometimes he didn't, it depended on the day. But Tino always walked Rayanne- she was smaller than the other kids, even the ones in her own grade, and had a tendency to get herself into trouble.  
Rayanne Graff had a big mouth, there was no denying that, even at that age. She'd pick fights with the other kids for making fun of her friend Enrique, or for the fact that her father left. Not that any of the other kids had perfect home lives either, they didn't exactly live on the nice side of town, but hell, Rayanne made herself a target, always running that mouth of hers. So, Tino walked Rayanne home, or rather he allowed her to walk with him. See, it wasn't exactly cool to have a little kid- a little girl, and a crier at that- tagalong, but Tino allowed it, so Jordan didn't say anything.  
Of course, he didn't particularly like the girl either. She talked too much, and he could never keep up with what she was going on about, but Tino thought she was funny, so she stayed. Jordan especially didn't have a leg to stand on when he repeated the fifth grade and then later the seventh, making him a bit of a tagalong himself, despite being the same age as Tino and the others.

"Catalano- you're in my grade now?" Rayanne had asked him the first morning when she'd found him slumped in the back corner seat- her seat.  
"Who says?" Jordan had replied, lip curled in a surly display of civil disobedience.  
"Duh," Rayanne gestured, "You're in my homeroom."  
"Oh," he glanced around, as though he'd only just noticed, "Yeah, I guess."  
"Cool," Rayanne said, side-eyeing the boy as she sat down next to him.  
"Yeah," he ruffled the back of his too long hair and slumped down further in his seat, "Real cool."

The two still weren't friends, exactly, they just ran in the same circles and knew the same people and went to all the same places and so on and so forth. They drank together and fooled around sometimes, but that was just because she was a basically goodlooking and very willing participant. They weren't _into_ each other, or anything gross like that, no chance. They might be in the same grade now, but Rayanne was the original tagalong. Eventually he just, stopped fighting it.  
Occasionally her friendship even benefited him, like when she befriended a hot new girl in eighth grade. Sure, once he'd finished with her she'd been more mad at Rayanne than she was at him, but Rayanne hadn't held it against him. The girl had been crying in the bathroom, telling everyone what a bad friend Rayanne Graff was, and still she'd only rolled her eyes at the dramatics, taking a swig from her trusty flask. She'd taken to drinking in school and not just after it, but nobody had blinked an eye, other than Rickie of course, who always covered for her. Tino thought it was okay so long as she stayed out of drugs, Jordan was too busy getting smacked around by his old man, and their other friends had their own problems to worry about. Lord knows her mother would never notice, and it's not like she had a dad around, so they figured nobody would get in trouble for providing her with all that booze.

But then their sophomore year, things had changed. She started hanging out with Angela Chase, and the girl piqued Jordan's interest- even more than girls usually do. It wasn't that she was just hot, she wasn't really. She was just, different, and Jordan had had too much of the same lately. Angela was always _looking_ at him, and not like girls normally do either, she was looking as if she was seeing something, something important. Jordan looked at himself in the mirror in the guy's bathroom, but he certainly didn't see anything about himself that Angela might be seeing. He didn't come across as very important himself, but he sure liked the way she stared at him.  
So Rayanne made the introduction, for the girl's benefit, Angela's. She'd asked her for an in to get to know him and for once Rayanne resented it. She didn't _want_ to introduce Angela to Jordan, because she knew how it always played out. But the girl was obsessed and Rayanne didn't want to lose the friendship, so she made it happen. She was pissed at Catalano for not treating her the right way- anyone could tell Angela was different from the other girls they knew. Rayanne found herself about as obsessed with Angela as the new redhead was with Jordan. She wasn't into her romantically, or anything- she liked boys, alright?- but she was just so _different_. She made Rayanne want to be, somehow, better, if that was possible. And she cared about her, when, like, only Rickie had before, more than Tino even had when they were kids, and definitely more than the others did. She cared more than her own mother, too.

But Rayanne knew it was all downhill when Angela and Jordan broke-up. Sure, they were 'friends' for now, but even before Angela stared going for Corey Rayanne could see how things had changed between them. Since her almost overdose, Angela was looking at Rayanne differently. Like she couldn't trust her, or like her opinion of her had changed. She saw Rickie getting closer to Angela too, and Rayanne envisioned a future where the two of them left her in the dust, hanging out with Corey and their new set of friends, friends who didn't have problems like Rayanne and who wouldn't cause problems like Jordan. She knew that if that happened, it be different than the other times- she couldn't just shrug this one off, Angela had _meant_ something to her, maybe more than she'd even meant to Catalano. So Rayanne did what she did best. She self-destructed.  
She knew as it was happening that it wasn't something she'd be able to come back from, but once the wheels were in motion she couldn't stop herself. Jordan was familiar, and hell he was even fun to be with, despite the sinking feeling they both had in the pit of their stomach. Clutching her bottle with one hand and her with the other, even Jordan knew this would change things. They were both feeling guilty even as it happened, but of all the people in the world they were the least likely to stop it. Both of them were constantly looking for a way to shake up their lives, and hell, maybe this was it.

"It's such bullshit," she grumbled to Tino. Of course Angela found out. There was never any version of this where she _didn't_ find out- it was inevitable. What hadn't been so easy to predict, however, was her reaction to it. To forgive Jordan but not Rayanne was beyond comprehension, and Rayanne was taking it as expected.  
"You knew you were playing with fire," he shrugged, "You do these things to yourself- your whole life is a ticking time bomb."  
"Duh, Oprah," the short girl scowled, "I didn't know she'd jump back in the sack with Catalano though. I thought we'd both go down for once."  
"That's not how you chicks work," Tino shook his head, "You knew that. It's happened a million times before you and Angela, and it'll happen a million more times after you two. Girls love to hate on each other."  
"But I didn't hate her," Rayanne said quietly, "I _still_ don't hate her."  
"Well that's a damn shame then," he allowed, "But it won't change a thing."  
"Duh, squared," she agreed sullenly, raising the brown bottle to her lips once more.


End file.
